26/11: Kasab found guilty

Special sessions judge M.L. Tahaliyani at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai on Monday pronounced Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, guilty of waging war against India.

After a 271-day trial,the 1,522-page judgment convicted Kasab of conspiring to wage war, along with nine other terrorists and 20 co-conspirators in Pakistan, and of murder and abetment to murder, among other offences. Among the 20 wanted accused indicted by the court are Lashkar operatives Hafeez Saeed, Zaki-Ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Abu Hamza.

The judge acquitted the other two accused, both Indians, Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed, of “all the charges framed against them.” The two had been accused of making and conveying maps of target locations in Mumbai.
The court said: “The preparations made for the attacks by Kasab and nine other attackers, and the co-conspirators, the training imparted to the gunmen, the arms and ammunition involved and the quantity of cartridges reached proved beyond reasonable doubt that this was not a simple case of murder but an offence punishable under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code.” This Section refers to “waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the government of India.”